Daniel Haaksman has been on our radar since the day we discovered Kelman Duran’s wonderfully ethereal remix of his track Corpo Sujeito. At 2GB we hold Mr Duran in high esteem, and so his remix naturally led to an investigation of Daniel Haaksman; which was nothing but rewarding.

A pioneer in pushing the Baile Funk sound originating in Rio de Janeiro to the rest of the world, Daniel Haaksman is renowned for his 2004 release Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats. The compilation, released on Haaksman’s Essay Recordings, was the first of its kind to present the sound emanating from favelas to a global audience. The release is widely considered as the first major international reference and compilation of Baile Funk featuring the genre’s biggest tunes from the early 00s. Since then, Daniel Haaksman has continued to be at the forefront of bringing the South-American sound to our ears.

The Baile Funk sound has progressively made its way across the Atlantic, with its influence heard in anything from stems of electronic music to samples in mainstream pop. Weirdly enough, Bonde de Tigrão’s Tchu Tchuca became somewhat of a national anthem in Gibraltar during the early 2000s – though even as a Gibraltarian who was exposed to it, I have no idea how this came to be.

Unanswered absurdities aside, it’s clear that Brasil’s Baile Funk sound has risen to a global stage, and Mr Haaksman has played his role in making that happen, pushing Brazilian, Afro and Caribbean sounds to European ears. Nearing the end of 2020, Daniel Haaksman’s label Man Recordings released a compilation to commemorate its 15 year anniversary. The release succeeds in bringing together a mixture of sounds spanning Tropical Bass, Afro, Moombahton and, you guessed it, plenty of Baile Funk. A track from the compilation that especially stood out when hearing it for the first time was Max9k’s remix of MC Gringo’s track Alemão. To be honest, I was surprised to find he was from Helsinki, as the garage-influenced flip did a great job at encapsulating the movement that’s currently sweeping the South-American nation: Brime, which has got MCs and Baile Funk artists adopting UK influences from genres such as Garage and Grime and putting their stamp on it.

Daniel Haaksman’s recent Samba-influenced edit of Sault’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down” is testament to the knowledge of and interest taken in the music he promotes and puts out. Using Samba’s contextual history and connotations as the vehicle to make the track both richer and more set-ready, the heavy percussive rhythms, sirens and the accompanying cuíca (which was always going to win me over) make for a fantastic flip, as fit for protest as it is an upcoming dance floor.